


Make My Life a Holiday

by Reccea



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-14
Updated: 2010-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:29:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reccea/pseuds/Reccea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows that no one will think anything of it. Mack's not one to attend a party and she's never been one to stay until closing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make My Life a Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> For the delightful Raisintorte's birthday. Thanks to Smittywing for the inspiration and the beta. Title from Dexter Freebish's _Ghosts (Voices in My Head)_.

When Elizabeth thinks about Christmas, about the years she spent with Simon, she thinks about hotel rooms and tents and being somewhere she was needed every single year. Christmas with Simon was a delayed event, made up for with expensive gifts and thoughtful dinners. It hadn't mattered. Elizabeth had never been particularly religious and Hallmark holidays didn't do much for her. And what she'd liked, really, was that he'd been understanding about her work coming first.

In retrospect, it was a relationship a little too adult to really last a lifetime.

There's a party that night. Radek and some of his team had set up exploding streamers in the mess hall. Rodney and John have bickered over the punch, and then the chicken, and then the cake. There is mistletoe that everyone had taken advantage of, and that Ronon has played dumb about at least twice an hour.

Mack took a midday watch that bled into the festivities and Elizabeth doesn't mind much. She's enjoying watching her people laugh and dance and make fools of themselves and be a family. Carson teaches Teyla different Christmas carols, more traditional ones that Aiden had the year before, and Heightmeyer accompanying them awfully on a keyboard someone had dragged in.

Elizabeth sat near the door, hands cupped around a warm mug of honest-to-God rehydrated wassail. There's a hand on her shoulder and a voice in her ear before she notices the doors have even opened. "Shouldn't have your back to the door," Mack says.

"I'm taking the night off." She smiles into her cup. "Besides, I think John's watching the door enough for everyone." Across the room John looks their way and gives a short nod that isn't directed at her.

Mack grunts, inaudible, and she glances up to see if he's amused or annoyed. His eyes are narrowed, laugh lines showing up deep and there's a smile at the corner of his mouth.

"No one's spiked the wassail if you're interested." She nods towards the beverage table.

"You planning on staying the night here?" He says it softer than anything, his eyebrows quirked up.

She doesn't look at the room, filled with these people she loves, she just looks at him and holds her cup out. "You should try some before we go."

His eyes flick up, taking in the crowd, but he takes the cup anyway. He turns it, sipping from the same side she had, and looks surprised at the taste. "Jack pulled out all the stops, didn't he?"

"Rodney told Colonel Carter some story about homemade candy canes and not-apple cider." The cider was true enough, though of a harder nature than Rodney had probably let on, but the candy was a full on lie. "I think there is some honest pity in our winnings."

Mack hands the cup back, shaking his head. "Sheppard probably put him up to it."

She drains the last of the wassail, closing her eyes as the spice and heat work down her throat. There are some things about Christmas that she misses from childhood that she didn't even realized she'd missed. "I'll meet you in a few minutes?" She opens her eyes and stands up.   
"I should say goodnight." She knows that no one will think anything of it. Mack's not one to attend a party and she's never been one to stay until closing.

"Yes, ma'am," he intones gravely, eyes sparkling in the low light.

She smiles at him, wants to push at him playfully, but she bites her lip instead and heads into the crowd. Radek presses cookies into her hand, Carson offers more wassail for the walk home. Rodney waves her off, too busy arguing with John about a particular puddlejumper quirk to really pay her any mind. John winks at her but keeps his attention mostly on Rodney.

She does him the courtesy of ignoring that, the way he ignores her preferences, and she moves on to Chuck and others from the gateroom. Ronon smiles at her and she deftly avoids the mistletoe. There is mistletoe at the entrance that she can't avoid (coming in she'd been given a kiss on the cheek by Rodney, Teyla, and Carson in turn) but there's no one nearby so she makes a clean escape.

The door closes behind her and she's pressed into the wall before she even registers the movement of someone nearby.

"Taking the night off?" Mack says before he kisses her. He tastes like her wassail and a sugar cookie he must have snuck out. It's a quick kiss, thorough and sweet and it makes her heart race more than any kiss she's ever gotten on Christmas eve before.

He pulls away from her, steps back to a more respectful distance and his face is more gentle than she's used to. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth and savors the taste. She raises her eyebrows, curious and pleased.

"Couldn't let a lady pass by mistletoe without attention," he says, almost innocently.

She pushes away from the wall, inclines her head to him as she walks towards the transporter. "I'll have to keep that in mind."

He follows her, just a step behind all the way. When they step inside, as the door slide closed, she grabs his hand for a second and squeezes. She likes to think he reads the promise in the gesture.

The halls are empty but they don't run like teenagers to her room. There's no hurry, they have all night and there's a peace in that she's only just beginning to appreciate. The doors close behind them and he has her up against the wall again, pressing against every way he can, mouth crushing hers open.

It makes her, ridiculously, think of college. Of the first Christmas she spent in a bed that hadn't always been hers. Mack doesn't make her feel young, young isn't what she'd want to feel anyway, but he makes her feel real and alive and sure of things in ways she hasn't for years. He has that same confidence her first boyfriend had, hands that promised her things she didn't know about, that held her steady, that skimmed her skin like it was the only place they wanted to be.

She curls her leg around his thigh, pulls him a little closer until he's in just the right place, and he grunts, hips thrusting against hers. It's so stupid but she thinks she wants to stay like this, fully clothed against the wall, gasping against the friction of his body and the seam of her pants. She hasn't wanted that since high school, since she dated boys who didn't need to shave every morning. She bites at his mouth, bottom lip catching against his stubble and she groans into it.

Truth is, she wants him every way she can have him.

"Jesus," he mutters, turning his head until his mouth finds the line of jaw, makes his way steadily up to her ear. Bites just hard enough for it to sting and she arches hard into him, feeling him and the fact that it isn't enough is what's driving her crazy.His hands slip down her body, fingers following the lines of her shirt until they skate over the ridge of pants. He grips her hips, lifts her up just a little, gets the angle better and the only place they're touching skin is his mouth on her ear and his thumbs under the edge of her shirt.

She grunts and rolls her hips in time, just moving with him, feeling the bite of her clothes and the pressure of his body and his breath on her cheek. She grabs a hold of his neck, blunt nails pressing too hard into the tender skin, jerks his head to smash their mouths together. The faint sugar taste has all but faded away into his familiar taste and she's glad for it, glad for the thrust of his tongue, sharing timing with the rest of him.

She can't remember the last time she kissed like this, the last time a kiss was the most contact she was getting.

His hips pivot, friction ratcheting up and slides her hands down his shoulders, rakes over them like she's trying to pull herself up him and hell,   
maybe she is. He makes a harsh strangled sound as she scratches and she can feel him against her, he's so close to coming. It surprises her that she is too.

"God, how long have you been--" She drags a hand away from his back, moves it between them, fingers pressing against the length of him, knuckles pressing just right into her.

He laughs, stilted and breathless, bites at her mouth. "Before the damn apple juice," he whispers.

She squeezes as he rides up again, her breath catching at the hard thrust, the heat of him through cotton and the harder ridge of her bones.

"Jesus," he says again, head dropping to her shoulder, breath heaving and he's coming against her hand, pulling her so close that the wetness seeps through the cloth, makes her shudder against herself and she is so damn close. So, so close.

She whines high in her throat, pressing rough kisses to his jaw, just wanting. He moves his hand from her hip, pulls hers away from him and presses them both over her body. He pushes their fingers at the right spot, sliding down hard four times until it finally all sets off like fireworks behind her eyes. She curses when she comes, low and filthy and so unlike her.

"God," she mutters, pulling her leg down, thighs like jelly. He leaves open-mouthed kisses against her neck but doesn't seem inclined to move.

"I haven't done that in years," he says to her collarbone.

She runs a hand up his neck into the short damp hairs. "Nah." She smiles, leaning her head against his.

"Next time, let's get out of our clothes first, okay?" He is smiling against her shirt.

"I'll help with the laundry," she promises, squeezing the hand still wrapped around hers.

He laughs, low and wrecked and pulls back to look at her. She thinks that he doesn't look at her in quite the way anyone else does. Or maybe ever has.

"Consider it a Christmas gift?" she asks. She has a box wrapped under her bed.

His laugh jumps at that, louder than before. He kisses her softly, says against her mouth, "Thought this _was_ the gift."

"Yeah," she says, unthinking. "Yeah maybe it is."


End file.
